- (1.) Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.
(2.) Respondent no.1 Umesh Kumar was a conductor in U.P. State Road Transport Corporation. On 23.1.2002, he was found by the checking squad to be carrying some passengers without ticket. He was served with charge sheet dated 31.1.2002. The respondent no.1 participated in the inquiry and also made an application for summoning the officers of Taj Depot under the service of the Corporation for the purpose of establishing his innocence by oral evidence. These officers were not summoned by the inquiry officer and only the traffic inspector and the traffic superintendent appeared on behalf of the employer to give evidence. The explanation of the workman was that after his bus had left the Saiyan Bus Station behind, just then several passengers who were travelling in another bus which had developed a mechanical defect boarded in his bus. He was in the process of issuing tickets to them and wanted to stop the bus till it was completed, but all the passengers insisted that the bus should be first allowed to cross the approaching railway line and then only the tickets be issued to avoid any possibility of railway line being closed due to arrival of the train as it may then cause unnecessary delay. It is while the bus was moving to cross the railway line that checking staff stopped the bus and found that some passengers by that time had not been issued tickets.
(3.) After inquiry, the inquiry officer submitted his report saying that there was no intention of the workman to embezzle any amount but he was found a bit irresponsible for having allowed the passengers to board the bus in violation of the principle of "Pay and Board". Reason given by the inquiry officer for these findings is based on the facts that a mechanical failure had developed in another bus at a little distance away from Saiyan Bus Station and passengers of that bus had boarded the corporation bus which the respondent no.1 was conducting. He also found that the respondent no.1 had already issued tickets to ten such passengers but could not issue tickets of other passengers of the other bus. This finding was based on the record.;